Topeka Tales
by Kay Seda
Summary: Scenes from the cop drama/TV show/AU thing! Drabbles and ficlets as opposed to full episodes, detailing our heroes' lives fighting crime in Topeka. Also includes a handy cast list!
1. Intro and Cast List

_**A bit of an introduction...**_

The _Twister City_ AU has pretty much eaten my life a a lot of my creative energies. I don't always have the time or focus to do full "episodes," but there are always scenes and drabbles and little moments that I'm forever tinkering with. This is where I'm going to be putting these works.

A note on "episode" designation: the first number is the season, the second is the episode number. So 1x01 is the first episode of the first season, 2x16 is the sixteenth of the second season, etc. Episode titles follow the numerical designation.

Now for something useful: the cast list! I've put clarifications for the non-obvious people in parentheses. There shall be shippiness and it will go like this: Cain/Ambrose, DG/Raw, Leona/Vy-Sor, Jeb/OFC, Tutor/OFC, and Az gets a couple pairings because she's that awesome. Keep in mind that it's an AU and so no one is exactly as they are in the mini:

_Law & Order: Doink Doink_ - Cops and lawyers and judges, oh my!  
**Det.**** Wyatt Cain** - Eight months after the murder of his wife, Cain sets out to rebuild his life in the big city. His small-town cop skills seem out of place on the mean streets of Topeka, but he quickly becomes a valuable asset on the force. His son, jaded emo teenager **Jeb**, seems awash in apathy but really knows more about what's going on than anyone else.

**Det. Thomas Tudor** - Cain's partner and a veteran of Topeka's homicide squad. Tudor is just trying to get his twenty and his pension, some might say by any means necessary. Rumor has it he's a dirty cop but a good detective, and so long as criminals are being put away the department will turn a blind eye.

**Lt. Lionel Rawlins** - Cain and Tudor's supervisor. A man of few words, but each and every one carries weight. Rawlins is intelligent and compassionate, and some make the mistake of seeing those qualities as weaknesses.

**Elmer Gulch** - Patrol officer. Holds department record for writing up speeding violations.

**Peter Vue** (Father Vue) - Receptionist for the department. Forever preoccupied with his iPhone.

**Dorothy Gailman, assistant district attorney** - One of the youngest ADA's in the city's history at 27. One might say her name is what got her the job, but there's tale she may have used her charm and... other assets to gain her position. Whatever happened, D.G. is one lawyer you don't want to mess with.

**Gene Lonnot, defense lawyer** (General Lonnot) - Once a close ally of the Gailman family, Lonnot finally got fed up with the perceived corruption and switched sides. Claims that he is simply embittered due to being passed over as mayoral legal counsel are brushed off.

**The Right Honorable ****Judge Marvin Wayzard** (the Mystic Man) - An eccentric, possibly an alcoholic, his decisions can be somewhat unconventional but usually always fair. Or not.

_CSI: Topeka_ - Don't touch that, it's evidence!  
**Dr. Ambrose LeFevre****, chief of forensics** - Genius, and overgrown kid. LeFevre is a born and bred Topekan whose skills qualify him to work in a much larger city, something many colleagues wish he would do. He has an open and optimistic view on life despite his history of tragedy and melodrama.

**Leona Praedlyn****, CSI** ("...a lovely lass named Leona") - Evacuated from Slidell just before Hurricane Katrina struck, Praedlyn moved in with her cousin Ambrose and somehow managed to never go home. The belle of the department, by turns morbid and sassy, she seems to have an answer for everything.

**Dr. Igor Raynz, medical examiner** - Creepy.

**Hank and Emily Droiden,**** IT** - Charming, cheerful, and ever-helpful with all things to do with technology. Hank can be bribed with peanut brittle, Emily (who ran the crime lab before LeFevre took over) prefers Glenfiddich.

_The West Wing (of city hall)_ - Government inaction.  
**Mayor Lavender Gailman-Queenly** - Has her eye on the governor's mansion, and hopes neither of her daughters try and kill anyone else in the meantime.

**William "Omaha" Queenly** - The mayor's husband. He's from Nebraska, no one likes him.

_KAKE in Topeka_ - All the news that's fit to broadcast, and some that isn't.  
**Vyktor Sorrel** (Vy-Sor) - News anchor. Waiting for a gig on Fox News.

**Airianna Aufdae** (Airofday) - News anchor. No one can place her accent.

**Azkadelia "Katy" Gailman** - Weather. Once tried to slice open a certain Washburn lab assistant's head while on a meth bender. Estranged from her mother (you know, the MAYOR) but close with her sister (you know, the ADA).

**Redd Hattigan** (Red Hat of the Eastern Guild) - Sports. Yes, sometimes he rhymes.

**Xora Mobatille** - Traffic. There never is any, but she enjoys the helicopter rides.

_County Lock-up Break_ - Every cop show needs some bad guys.  
**Everett "Zero" Zevon** - Gangland crime boss and cattle rustler. Also the guy that killed Cain's wife.

**Antoine DeMilo** - Operates a strip club despite community protests. Rumor has it he's also a pimp, but rumor has it he made up that rumor.

* * *

With that out of the way, on to the tales!


	2. Indistinguishable From Magic

Katy Gailman and Ambrose LeFevre: the early years. Five drabbles, originally written for the tinman 100 challenge "project."

* * *

_1983_  
It was the first day of school, and Mrs. Beckley's second grade class was copying down information from the overhead projector. One boy, however, was studying the projector itself.

He knew how it worked, but he still wanted to look at the mirrors and lenses, wanted to twist the knob just a little bit to bring the image into perfect focus-

"Ahem!" Mrs. Beckley said suddenly, and the class giggled as the boy quickly snatched his hand back.

"He was trying to fix it," the girl on the other side of the projector said, then she and the boy exchanged a smile.

*

_1992_  
He'd skipped two grades, and they'd spent a few years barely talking, but now they were best friends again. Maybe more.

They were sprawled on his bedroom floor, watching projected constellations spin across the ceiling.

"If I ask you to come to prom with me would you laugh?"

"Oh yeah. And then I'd say yes."

"Okay," he said, then asked her.

Katy started laughing, then she hugged him. Ambrose hesitated, then hugged her back.

"Like I'd miss going to prom with a _senior_," she told him, then kissed him, and he kissed her, and they didn't talk about it because they were best friends. Maybe more.

*

_1996_  
"You know what they say about sufficiently advanced technology?" Ambrose asked as he searched through video segments.

Katy folded her arms and leaned back against the green screen. "No, but I bet you're going to tell me."

He snorted and clicked on an option. "It's indistinguishable from magic. Pretend you're running from elephants."

"_Elephants_?" she drawled and glanced up at the monitor that was showing the camera feed. He claimed helping her with her Broadcast Media project was getting him some postgrad credit, but she suspected he was just messing with her. "Be serious. What else?"

"Sorry. Okay, you're on a balcony at sunset..."

*

_1998_  
"...I'm projecting the settlement to be in the area of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

"It's too much," Ambrose muttered. He scratched at the left side of his head. Who knew hair growing back would itch so?

His lawyer sighed. "Ambrose, I don't think you appreciate the position you're in. The Gailmans will do anything to make this go away, you could get twice-"

"I don't care," Ambrose said, and glanced down the hall to where Katy was seated with her mother. She did not look up, had not looked up since... he looked away. "I just want her to get better."

*

_2010,_ "2x12 - Spellbound"  
Eventually they settled on friends, not "best," and no "maybes" although there had been some complications along the way. They'd meet for lunch, discuss the weather, her sister's never-ending trouble making, his newest creation.

"Nifty little thing," Ambrose said and settled the model on the table. Katy tilted her head and waited for him to explain what the hell it was. "I need to get the mirrors and lenses right, but the idea is it'll project three-dimensional holograms. It's solar powered, but with the battery it could loop indefinitely...and I've lost you."

"Just say that it's magic, Brose."

He grinned. "It's magic, Azkadee."


	3. 1x02 Ad Vice

CSIs LeFevre and Praedlyn check out a crime scene. Originally written for the tinman100 challenge "cabin."

* * *

_1x02 - Ad Vice_

"Don't see that every day."

There was a clothesline stretched along the porch of the cabin, and hanging from it was an assortment of knickers, briefs, thongs, boxers, and bloomers flapping in the breeze.

Unfazed, LeFevre powered up his camera and snapped a picture, then turned slightly and took another, and another.

"You're enjoying this," Praedlyn remarked and climbed the steps.

LeFevre shook his head and ducked under the clothesline, batting something silky out of his face. "Less than you would imagine."

Inside were more clotheslines with more undergarments, crisscrossing and overlapping. Teddies and stockings and bras and lacy things of every color, size, and description, most with tags still attached. The CSIs glanced at each other, then Praedlyn took out her own camera and they both continued taking pictures.

"Fetish or art form?" she mused.

"Can't it be both?" he asked and ducked under another line which seemed to be devoted to garter belts.

Praedlyn snorted as LeFevre moved on to another room. A pair of ruffled boycut pink panties caught her attention. "We're going to have to catalogue all of this."

"Every bloomin' thing," he called back. There was a momentary pause. "You know, I've never understood edible underwear."

"I shouldn't find that as reassuring as I do."


	4. 1x04 Balance Struck

From 1x04 - Balance Struck. Dorothy and Lionel come to an understanding about their relationship. Written for tinman100's challenge "all the way."

* * *

They stole moments in the courthouse stairwell; she'd wrap her arms around him under his suit jacket and he's tenderly thread his fingers in her hair.

He'd come to this city because he was done with being adrift at sea and had found an anchor in her. She'd discovered a hero in him, and the bravery to see this all the way through.

"Would it be weird if I said I loved you?"

"No."

"All right. I do, you know. Just... one thing?"

"Yes?"

"Could you lose the beard?"

He was quieter than usual for a moment, then nodded. "Okay. Love you too."

She smiled, and was home.


	5. 1x17 By A Thread

_Quick set-up: it's late in season 1, Zero's turned up, Cain and LeFevre are running some random errand at the Juvenile Justice Authority up in the Jayhawk Tower in the middle of a thunderstorm, and then _this_ slashery happens. I suggest Jimi Hendrix's "Are You Experience?" and some headphones._

* * *

1x17 - By A Thread  
_- Forty-five seconds_

"And now you have an in with juvie. Just in case."

"In case of what?"

"Oh, you know how kids are."

There was a rumble of thunder as the elevator pinged open outside the Juvenile Justice Authority's office in Jayhawk Tower.

"Uh huh."

"Someday you'll laugh."

"Someday you'll get better material."

The doors closed and the elevator began its downward journey. Slowly. And then several things happened at once.

The elevator lurched to a halt, the main lights went out, the dim emergency lights when on, and a whining buzz commenced.

"That's not good."

_One minute_

"No, we're fine," Cain shouted into his phone. "That's just the emergency buzzer, LeFevre's working on it."

Truth be told Cain had been impressed with the speed and tenacity with which LeFevre had attacked the elevator's call box. The access panel hung open and the wires had been pulled out with care, and now the CSI was studying the whole apparatus with a frown.

The wire cutters in his right hand opened and closed periodically in anticipation.

"Thanks, Tudor, just let them know we're here."

LeFevre pinched a yellow wire between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, brought the wire cutters up, then shook his head and grabbed a red wire instead.

"Yeah, sit tight, very funny, we'll see you soon," Cain sighed, and ended the call.

The red wire was also dismissed, and then the green and yellow were grabbed together and cut. LeFevre yelped, dropped the cutters, and shook his right hand vigorously.

The incessant buzzing had stopped.

"Fuddermucker," LeFevre snapped. He flexed his fingers a few times.

Cain loomed over him. "You okay?"

LeFevre nodded and hauled himself to his feet. "Just stung a bit. 'Shock resistant grip' my ass," he muttered and kicked the wire cutters. They skidded into the wall and back again. "I know one tool company that's getting a strongly worded letter. So what are we looking at?"

With a sigh Cain removed his hat and ran a hand through his hair. "Tudor says power's out over most of the grid, we're at the mercy of Westar."

"So it could be... now," LeFevre tried, paused expectantly, then continued. "Or some minutes. Or hours. Or days."

"It won't be days."

"Just remember, if it starts going Donner Party in here, I'm a lot skinnier than you are. Less sustenance. Think about it."

There was silence for a few moments.

Finally, Cain shook his head. "You are not 'a lot' skinnier than I am."

_Twenty minutes_

"Are you claustrophobic?"

Cain jumped. It had been blessedly, amazingly quiet for several minutes as he paced the elevator. LeFevre had settled cross-legged on the floor against the back wall, where he'd apparently taken up careful study of his fellow captive.

They could still hear muffled thunder from time to time.

"I am not scared of small spaces," Cain said in an authoritative tone and leaned back against the doors. "I just don't like them."

LeFevre shrugged and closed his eyes. "That's fine. Just try to think about something else."

_Thirty-five minutes_

"It's too stuffy."

"So take your tie off."

"Are you sure there's air circulating? Because if the air conditioner's off-"

"WYATT!" Ambrose shouted. "Take off your tie, roll up your sleeves, bring my bag over here, and sit."

Wyatt scowled but complied, loosening his tie as he stooped to get the bag, which he handed to Ambrose before before he sat down to the man's right and got to work on his sleeves.

Ambrose had retrieved a graph paper notebook from the bag and flipped past several crime scene diagrams until he got to a blank page. He gave his mechanical pencil two clicks and started drawing near-draftsman quality schematics of an elevator cab.

"The doors are locked but not sealed," he explained. "Air's getting in through the door, and likely anywhere else with a seam. Air's also getting _out_ the same way so you can stop breathing so shallow. We're not going to suffocate."

Wyatt glared at him, but took care to try and breathe normally.

Ambrose nodded, smoothed a curl behind his ear, and went back to detailing his sketch. "Let me tell you a story."

_Forty-five minutes_

"...so my folks started just leaving me alone once they figured out I was smart enough to not burn the house down."

"By alone you mean-"

"Literally. Mom was very New Age the-individual-knows-best nature over nurture-style parenting. She was also an alcoholic and an egomaniac, an artist. Dad worshipped her, she was his muse." Ambrose shrugged and set the notebook down. The original sketch was surrounded with doodles of design improvements and rejected escape ideas. "He was jealous of me, we think."

Wyatt tried to wrap his mind around this concept. "_How_? You were just a kid."

"I took her attention, so when she stopped giving it to me he didn't discourage her. Her neglect was, for lack of a better term, well-intentioned. His was malicious." He smiled wryly at Wyatt. "It was what it was, that's empirical fact. Plenty of people have loved me since then." He paused. "And I've had loads of therapy."

Despite himself, Wyatt snorted. "So that's how you know all that psychobable."

"Yep!" Ambrose replied brightly, then sobered with a nod. "Your turn. Let's have it."

Wyatt grimaced, sighed, and nodded.

_One hour_

"It was the same kind of knot you use to bind a calf's legs when it's getting branded," Wyatt said quietly. "That's how I know it was him. Is him."

Ambrose chewed his lip, then nodded slowly. "And... she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time?"

"Probably," Wyatt murmured. "It's one of those things that we could never figure out. No motive, no case, nothing to bring him in. They came back that any ranch hand could have made that knot, but every one is unique. That was Zero's knot, nobody's gonna tell me otherwise."

"We'll get him," Ambrose said. "We'll get him and we'll find out why."

"Yeah."

It was quiet again, and stuffy, and Wyatt was looking around and breathing shallow and the walls were closing in, he knew they were.

Ambrose reached into one of his bag's side pockets and pulled out his iPod. "Here," he said and popped one earbud into his right ear, offering Wyatt the other. "To keep your mind off it."

"Thanks, but..." Wyatt trailed off, holding the earpiece pinched in his fingers. "Sorry, your music's not quite-"

"I've got a classic rock list," Ambrose said, finger spinning around the control wheel as he searched. "Trust me, you'll like it."

Wyatt sighed, then settled the speaker in his left ear.

_One hour, fifty five minutes_

It was a decent mix, Stones and Bowie and Beatles and the Who, the occasional straying into T. Rex and Electric Light Orchestra to make Wyatt roll his eyes.

The next track came on, and Ambrose straightened. "Oh," he sighed and plucked his earbud free. "No, you've gotta hear this in stereo."

He twisted around on his knees and popped the speaker into Wyatt's right ear. Ambrose hovered there for a moment, smiling, until his left knee slid out from under him and he pitched forward. Both of his hands were planted to the wall on either side of Wyatt's head, to brace himself, and Wyatt's hands were grasping at his ribs to keep him steady, and that beyond-horrible idea manifested itself in Ambrose's mind full force.

It would be easy, Ambrose reasoned, to move his hands to the back of Wyatt's neck and he did so. Easy, too, when they were this close to just lean in a little bit more and kiss him. So he did that too.

_One hour, fifty-five minutes, thirty seconds_

It was Jimi Hendrix, a song he'd heard before but never like this when it was pressed right against his eardrums and slicing straight into his brain.

_Stereo_, and Ambrose was kissing him and Wyatt was angry because no... just, _no_.

His hands moved to the other man's shoulders and he shoved him back forcefully. Ambrose refused to back down and stared at Wyatt, all challenge and honesty, ready for whatever would be thrown at him.

Wyatt thought of yelling, or punching, or kicking, any of the logical and typical responses to the situation but none of them translated into action. Instead, and to his great confusion, his left hand fit itself to the base of Ambrose's skull, and he pulled him in again.

He'd come to blame it on any number of things: the music, the blatant dare in Ambrose's eyes, the need for distraction, the heat. The awful truth was, just for a moment, Wyatt wanted to feel closeness instead of grief, and he took it when it was offered.

It would be a very long time before he forgave himself.

_One hour, fifty eight minutes_

The lights came on and the elevator dropped a floor before the mechanism caught it and began to descend more slowly. Wyatt and Ambrose lurched apart, the iPod clattering to the floor between them.

Ambrose collected the device and struggled to his feet. "Well, damn," he breathed and tried straightening his hair.

"This never happened," Cain snapped. He remained where he was, sprawled on the floor and glaring up at the CSI.

"Ah," LeFevre said and nodded slowly. "Copy that." He snatched up his bag while the elevator came to a halt on the ground floor. "If you decide that maybe it did happen, _detective_, you know where to find me."

He stepped out of the now-open doors, as professional as he ever got, leaving Cain to struggle to catch up.


End file.
